Online creeper and far-right conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins has filed the required paperwork and on Thursday introduced his intent to run for Congress within the state of Arizona in 2023.

Watkins, one of many many D-list conservative celebrities that thrived on the MAGA fringe all through Trump’s presidency and subsequent downfall, portrays himself as a form of mastermind hacker beneath the web moniker “CodeMonkeyZ”. He is greatest referred to as the “former” administrator of each web hellhole 8chan and its successor 8kun, the imageboard the place three white supremacist mass shooters separately posted manifestos earlier than happening to homicide no less than 75 folks, and the person broadly suspected to be the eponymous “Q” of the QAnon motion.

Vice News reports that Watkins has lately been hanging out with Republican candidates for Arizona workplace like Kari Lake and state Representative Mark Finchem and filed an announcement of intent with the Arizona secretary of state earlier this week, Vice reported. That paperwork isn’t a proper declaration of candidacy, and merely requires Watkins to have claimed residency within the state, nevertheless it does clear Watkins to start accumulating petitions to seem on the poll. Watkins focused incumbent Democratic Representative Tom O’Halleran, whose time period will finish in 2023.

In a mortifying video uploaded to his channel on messaging app Telegram, the place Watkins has over 400,000 followers, Watkins melodramatically introduced: “I’ve come to realize that following God’s word is not always the easiest route but if we don’t follow our beliefs and the founding principles of our nation, it will crumble. This must stop now.”

“Therefore I have decided to double down with God as my compass to take this fight to the swamp of Washington D.C.,” Watkins continued. “I am here to formally announce my run for Congress in Arizona district number one.”

“I have decided to expose the dirtiest Democrat in the DC swamp, and some of you here may already know him as Congressman Tom O’Halleran representing Maricopa County, and District One,” Watkins instructed watchers. “What’s publicly known about Tom O’Hooligan shows that he is not fit to represent the people of Arizona. And from what I’ve already discovered, and will expose. Tom is not fit to represent anyone anywhere.“

Watkins said during the video that he was inspired to run by his pastor, Jeff Durbin of Mesa, Arizona’s Apologia Church, who has called for the execution of women who have abortions. Durbin once told a reporter it was a “bit of an insult to Hitler to compare what he did in Nazi Germany” to the pro-choice motion.

For those that have remained blessedly unaware, QAnon is a sprawling motion of right-wing extremists, racists and anti-Semites, and evangelical Christians that believed Donald Trump was combating an Underworld-style battle towards a cabal of child-raping, Satanic Democrats. This was totally cited to stream of consciousness-style posts from “Q”, a pseudonymous 8chan consumer who claimed to be a high-ranking army or intelligence official aiding Trump’s struggle towards the left-wing Illuminati. An HBO documentary, Q: Into the Storm, that investigated connections between Ron Watkins, his father Jim Watkins, and QAnon concluded the youthful Watkins both was Q or used his administrative powers on the board to grab management of the account in some unspecified time in the future.

The present featured quite a few, unsettling segments the place Watkins, who’s properly past the purpose of disgrace, appeared to threaten director Cullen Hoback with a mochi hammer, tried to stress him into visiting a brothel, and appeared in interviews alongside a life-size Evangelion doll (presumably a intercourse toy). He additionally unsuccessfully tried to persuade Hoback that Q was former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. In one notably disturbing scene, Watkins tried to feign sympathy with the victims of the 2019 El Paso taking pictures, during which a racist gunman focusing on Latinos killed 23 folks and injured 23 others. Watkins rambled to Hoback about how American consumers spending American {dollars} in an American retailer had been killed by a person with a Russian gun.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s loss within the 2020 elections, the Q account stopped posting, and Watkins claimed to have resigned as administrator of 8chan and tried to rebrand himself as a voter fraud skilled. After a swarm of Trump supporters and QAnon followers hopped up on conspiracy theories launched a failed MAGA assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, Twitter banned his CodeMonkeyZ account. Since then, Watkin has pivoted to varied new identities similar to UFOlogist and a cryptocurrency guru selling $600 NFTs of his posts that Trump had retweeted. So working for Congress, or no less than pretending to take action lengthy sufficient to maintain far-right eyes and wallets pointed in his route, looks like a pure development within the grifting life cycle.

According to Vice, Watkins filmed the announcement video exterior the workplace of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, the place he has arrived thrice in failed makes an attempt to safe a gathering. While his candidacy may very well be generously described as an extended shot, a victory within the race would make him probably the most outstanding QAnon affiliate to carry elected workplace. Watkins is way extra central to the motion than reigning QAnon champ Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Alabama, who since being elected final 12 months has spent most of her time period in workplace on consideration stunts like harassing the trans child of one other consultant or making an attempt and failing to start a white nationalist caucus.